Product liability: more David, less Goliath?

• Recent rulings in product liability group actions in both the Netherlands and France may provide hope for greater resource efficiencies for claimants facing deep-pocketed defendants.

With recent rulings in France, litigation afoot in the Netherlands, and obiter comments in the Lloyd v Google decision, there may well be reason to hope that the David vs Goliath dynamic that has defined the EU product liability landscape for the last 20 years is in flux, perhaps promising a brighter future for Big Pharma accountability across the EU and the UK. This article looks briefly at those ‘points of light’.

First some background: briefly put, the facts are as follows—the Product Liability Directive (Council Directive 85/374/EEC) (PLD) emerged newly minted from the European legislature in 1985 and was thereafter adopted into the domestic laws of all EU nations; in the UK, in the form of the Consumer